


The End

by smegging_hell



Series: Holo-Lister Series [1]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alive-Rimmer, Holo-Lister, Isn't this interesting?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:16:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11635914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smegging_hell/pseuds/smegging_hell
Summary: Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer are stuck in space, you know the drill. But the roles are switched, Rimmer is the last human in the universe, and Lister is a hologram, how does this power-shift affect existing narratives? Something like this, perhaps.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first episode, and at this point will seem largely the same as the plot of the original show, up until a fork about halfway in, be patient C:

It was an ordinary day. Just another humdrum, average, mind-numbingly boring yet totally ordinary day. Although could you really call what was being experienced a day? It was one of those weird English language things that counted on space travel not existing, and nobody could really be bothered inventing a new word for it, and if anyone had, nobody cared to try and use it. It would’ve felt forced, made people feel embarrassed to use the new word, much in the same way that people felt a bit silly after getting a daring new haircut that brushed against the boundaries of the ‘norm’, before inevitably deciding a uniform cut would draw less attention.

It was just another ordinary artificially created 24-hour-cycle of human activity commonly referred to as a day onboard Red Dwarf. Although that definition in itself could cause problems; the peoples of Mars with their 25 hour days, or the inhabitants of Ceres with their 9 hour cycles would ask you why their ‘day’ isn’t valid enough to be considered as an actual day, and why an Earth day takes priority over any other type of day there may be. That was all political bullshit that Dave Lister didn’t want to think about. His job wasn’t to think anyway, his job was to push his little blue trolley around all day, erm, all ‘human-activity-cycle of an indefinite amount’. Well, technically his job was to service odd pieces of superficial machinery around the city sized mining vessel, but his higher ranking partner not only forcefully took the reins of their shift but made Lister push the carriage. The ‘carriage’ in his case being the trolley full of equipment and parts.

It was thoroughly unthrilling. And what made the job worse was his partner’s tendency to drive Lister crazy. Lister himself was a laid-back man, happy-go-lucky. Arnold Rimmer, on the other hand, was not. He _really_ was not. Arnold Rimmer could not take a joke for the life of him. The man was less fun than a drawn-out pet funeral (despite protesting that fact three nights earlier in the quarters he and Lister shared).

Lister was completely and totally bored. His ears echoed with the sound of his and Rimmer’s footsteps, the hum of the ship’s engine, a song stuck on his mind he didn’t quite like but had no choice but to hear it play over and over in the background of the ship’s refectory, and, most annoyingly, the squeaky wheel of the trolley. If someone gave him the choice between doing this job and watching paint dry, he would have told them to smeg off.

“To Ganymede and Titan, yes sir, I've been around...” It was quite an annoying song. Not Lister’s usual genre, although he didn’t mind it at first, he did admit. But after about the 15th play and two weeks on board ship it began to really get on his nerves.

“Lister. Have you ever been hit over the head with a welding mallet?” Rimmer piped in, momentarily ceasing his marching through the corridors. Lister shook his head. He’d been hit over the head by many things, but never a welding mallet. Then again, if he did get smashed in the noggin by something like that, he probably wouldn’t have remembered it afterwards anyway.

“No? Stop that and push the trolley.”

“Yes, sir, Rimmer!” Lister mused, throwing his hand to his head in a mocking salute. He didn’t owe Rimmer any respect, and if he was going to listen to what he said, the least he could do was take the piss.

“Right.  Corridor 159.” Rimmer mumbled to himself as they approached a food dispenser Lister assumed was the location of their next job, although he wouldn’t be able to tell you because you can guarantee not once did Rimmer let Lister take a peep at his clipboard. See, Rimmer was at the rank of Second Technician, the second lowest rank on the entire ship. Unfortunately, Lister was Third Technician, the actual lowest rank on the ship, and since he was the only person Rimmer ranked above, Rimmer took it under his full liberty to express whatever power over Lister you could possibly get at his horrendous rank. Lister didn't care about any of that officer-y smeg, but unfortunately for him, Rimmer did. Big time.

He began to hum the same song, a perfect opportunity to wind Rimmer up.

“Lister, shut up!”

“I'm only humming!”

“Well _don't_.” Lister rested his arms on the handle of the trolley and leaned his head into them. Only briefly, though, as it inspired him to commence the next stage of his annoyment: slapping his cheeks open-mouthed to the tune of the music. This didn’t provide him with any satisfaction from the catchy tune, but he’d started to annoy Rimmer and he was going to finish it. “Lister, don't hum and don't make any stupid sounds with your cheeks.” Rimmer instructed. This didn’t stop him. The tune persisted, now in the form of tongue clicking and Lister stared innocently downwards. “Lister, one more sound, anything, and you're on report, miladdo.” he scolded. “What job number's this?” If Rimmer wanted Lister to play by the rules, then he’d play by the rules. ‘One more sound and you're on report’? Lister was going to play by the rules, but on his terms, and his terms were designed to drive Rimmer up the wall.

He mouthed his answer: _You told me not to make a sound, so I can’t talk. And I don’t know the job number cause you never told me._ Bingo. That was bound to create a decent sized twang of anger in his workmate.

“Right!  That's it!” He clicks his pen and begins writing, reading aloud as he does so. “‘Lister, D., Third Technician. Offence:  obstructing a superior technician by humming, clicking, and being quiet.’ When the Captain sees this you're dead.”

“Rimmer, I'm bored!” He objects with a mouth full of his lunch of a cold mince pie.

“Bored?! This is essential routine maintenance! It's absolutely vital for the well-being of this crew, this mission, and this ship.” Lister rolled his eyes and took another bite of his pie. That was total bullshit. He didn’t understand why Rimmer tried to pretend that he actually mattered towards the running of the ship; he was essentially a vending machine repairman, nothing more.

“Dispenser 172: chicken soup nozzle clogged.” Rimmer read from his clipboard. Lister’s point proven exactly. What grand purpose could the smooth function of a single soup machine possibly serve? In a ship 5 miles long with countless other soup machines it was easy to see that their job had very little purpose.

“Pass me a 14B, Lister,” he requested. Clicking his tongue in thought, Lister selected a long white pipe cleaner from a basket on his trolley and handed it to his coworker. “Lister, is this a 14B? Does it look even _remotely_ like a 14B?” he snapped, before burrowing through Lister’s trolley to find the correct tool. “ _This_ is a 14B, Lister. This is a 14F,” he instructs, holding up an identical pipe cleaner. “Are you blind?”

“Who cares?”

“ _I_ care, Lister!” He compares the two objects in each hand for a second, before quickly placing the 14-whatever he chose in his left hand back into the trolley. It was moments like these that Lister really began to consider whether flushing himself out an airlock would serve as a better alternative to listening to Rimmer’s bitter whining about him day in and day out. “It's _my_ career, Lister. I'm the one who gets it in the neck if an officer comes along, orders chicken soup, and gets black currant cordial with blancmange and two creams and a sugar.” Lister sucked the loose pastry off his fingers individually, watching Rimmer perform the thrilling job of unclogging the nozzle of the whatever.

It was such a boring task, it confused him why Rimmer would insist on taking it every single shift, but then again, watching someone else clean out a dishevelled nozzle was likely even more boring than doing the job. Lister would compare, but he’d never been given the opportunity to do the job himself. “Chicken soup,” Rimmer instructed the machine. With a whir, a red cup of sickly grey looking liquid was lowered into the small pigeon hole beneath the now-cleaned nozzle. He took a sip from the cup and immediately grimaced in disgust, spitting out the contents. “Yep that’s working.”

“It's stupid anyway, all this maintenance business. The only reason they don't give this job to the service robots is they've got a better union than us,” Lister protested, collecting the cup from where Rimmer left it and taking a sip himself. Immediately he knew the cause of Rimmer’s reaction. The soup was watery, over seasoned with salt and pepper and the bitter taste in the back of your mouth from recyc. water. Only after he’d swallowed could he faintly taste chicken, it was a real classic JMC budget meal. As far as the record went however, it wasn’t too bad. As far as the service robots went, he wouldn’t be able to tell you if his statement was true, but he knew for a fact that, unlike himself and Rimmer, the frequently malfunctioning service droids often called ‘scutters' had dental coverage on their contracts, despite not having teeth. He took another sip of the chicken soup, this time prepared for the salty sensation.

“Lister, that is absolute nonsense. Right. What's next? ‘Botanical gardens: faulty porous circuit. In corridor 147: sticking door.’” Rimmer began reading off his clipboard, marching quickly away from Lister in the direction of the next job. Quickly spinning the trolley around, Lister jogged, handle in one hand, soup in the other, to keep up with his superior.

“It's true, you know, though, Rimmer. You rank below all four of those service robots. Even the one that's gone absolutely mad.”

“Well, Lister, not for long, matey. Up, up, up! That's where I'm going!”

“Not until you pass your engineer's exam. And you won't do that because you'll just go in there and flunk again,” he replied, fetching a cigarette from the upturned flap of his hat and retrieving a lighter from his pocket.

“Lister, last time I only failed by the _narrowest_ of narrow margins.” Rimmer sighed. Bull. Shit.

“You what? You walked in there, wrote 'I am a fish' four hundred times, did a funny little dance, and fainted,” Lister corrected him. If there were two things in the universe that Rimmer was good at, they would be being a royal pain in the neck and failing exams. Lister didn’t particularly care to count the exact number of times Rimmer had attempted the astronavigation exam to no avail, but it was probably around the vicinity of 9 by this point.

Of course, Lister himself couldn't talk, having failed all his school exams himself, but at least he knew when to give up. Rimmer had an unhealthy obsession with promotion, promotion he’d not received, to Lister’s knowledge, in the entire 13 years he’d worked for the JMC, let alone during Lister’s mere 8 months with the company.

“That's a total lie!”

“No, it's not! Petersen told me,” he rebuffed, lighting his cigarette with the orange lighter. Funny how technology had progressed to create artificial atmospheres, computer generated consciousnesses, and ships that could theoretically run forever, but mankind still needed his miniature fire bottle to light his tobacco stick, Lister thought.

“‘No, it's not!  Petersen told me,’” Rimmer mocked. “Lister, if you must know, what I did was, I wrote a discourse on porous circuits which was simply too _radical_ , too _unconventional_ , too _mould-breaking_ for the examiners to accept.”

“Yeah. You said you were a fish.” He took a long draw from his cigarette. He wanted to be home. Earth. Not stuck on some ship somewhere in the outer solar system getting further and further from the blue marble as time went by.  His situation wasn’t ideal, but at least, he reasoned, it could be worse.

“Is that a cigarette you're smoking, Lister?” Rimmer accusatively inquired.

“No, it's a chicken.”

“Right! You're on report. Two times in as many minutes, Lister! I don't know.” Lister shook his head in disbelief. What a goit. He rested his cigarette in his ear, the lit end sticking straight out, trailing smoke as he moved around. It was a habit he’d picked up in school, handy for sure, but not as trendy as it once was. He was 25 now, on the verge of losing his youthful ‘cool’ aura he tried to give off.

“Rimmer, Lister,” a tall brown-haired man called out, walking up to the pair of them from another corridor, clipboard in hand, cream coloured uniform casually immaculate, rows of rank patches sewn onto the left breast of his shirt, opposite from a singular tag which read TODHUNTER in red.

“Yes, sir.” Rimmer stood to attention, dropping his clipboard and bringing his right arm to a 90-degree angle from his body, twirling his wrist thrice and saluting.

“Yo, Todhunter, get down!” Lister exclaimed, stamping his feet and jumping in excitement. Frank Todhunter was one of the few people Lister had to actively work with that he quite liked. Although Todhunter didn’t share Lister’s slobbish laid-back attitude, he had a sense of humour, unlike the man he was in close quarters with for 75% of his time. He wouldn't call himself and Todhunter friends, but rather friendly acquaintances; Frank, as the ship’s First Officer, was far too serious to ever find joy in what Lister classified as ‘fun’, and while he didn’t think too highly of Lister’s work ethic he had to admit that the fellow was certainly cheerful enough to provide a certain new layer of quirkiness to work-related conversations.

Rimmer, on the other hand, despised Todhunter. He was everything Rimmer wanted to be, successful, high ranking, liked to some degree by his co-workers. He had respect, the one thing Rimmer constantly tried to chew out of Lister.

“Indeed. Now, uh, Rimmer, I'm just going through MacIntyre's artefacts, and I see that you've filed 247 complaints... against Lister,” he read from his clipboard.

“Yes, sir!” Rimmer replied proudly.

“That's 123 counts of insulting a superior technician, 39 counts of dereliction of duty, 84 counts of general insubordination, and one count of mutiny,” He listed off, flicking through the leaves of paper attached to the board in his hand.

“Yes, sir!”

“Mutiny, Lister?” Todhunter asked. On some days, talking to the technicians on Z shift was like talking to a pair of bickering schoolboys, throwing accusations of he did this, he did that, ‘sir, my jacket’s on fire and it’s Lister’s fault’. Some days it was a laugh, others it was a waste of his time, but nevertheless, he kept his patience.

“I stood on his toe,” Lister justified, resuming consumption of his pie, cigarette in ear.

“Maliciously, and with intent to wound.”

“It was an accident!”

“Lister, I put it to you, how is it possible to stand on one small toe by accident? You didn't stand on my toe at all, you stood on my entire foot, thereby obstructing a superior technician in pursuit of vital duty,” they bickered.

“But the vital duty was him going to snap my guitar in half!”

“Whereupon you leapt from the top bunk onto the whole of my right foot.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Todhunter interrupted. He’d heard enough, it was just another case of the boys having another petty argument that he didn’t need to be around for.

“Had there been a crisis situation, Lister, I would have had to perform my duties hopping, clearly putting the ship at risk, clearly therefore mutiny.” Rimmer persisted, ignoring him. Frank paused.

“Finished?” he asked after a brief second.

“However, I'm not a vindictive man, so I don't intend to apply for the death penalty,” Rimmer hissed.

“There are 169 people on this ship. You, Rimmer, are over one man. Why can't you two get on?” It's a question Todhunter was sure many people aside from him have asked themselves at some point after meeting the boys, surely it shouldn't be _that_ hard to just _tolerate_ someone? But, after countless interactions with Dave and Arnold centring around their seeming burning hatred for each other, even Frank, himself, was starting to doubt that.

“You see, I try, sir. I'm not an insubordinate man by nature,” Lister explained, taking another bite of his pie. “I try and respect Rimmer and everything, but it's not easy, 'cause he's such a _smeghead_.”

“Did you hear that, sir? Lister, do you have any conception of the penalty for describing a superior technician as a smeghead?” Rimmer responded. Frank couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh Rimmer,” he began, patting him on the shoulder. “You _are_ a smeghead.” He walked away, continuing to laugh to himself, he had more pressing matters to deal with than listening to the back and forth yabbering the boys were notorious for. Lister began cackling with laughter, covering his mouth in shock briefly, before wiping a few crumbs off his mouth.

“You heard that! With respect, sir, your career's finished, Todhunter, you big lig, aargh!” Rimmer yelled down the corridor in Todhunter's direction. While Lister may have had the misfortune of sharing quarters and shift with Rimmer, at least the rest of the crew could agree with him that Arnold Rimmer could dampen anyone’s day, erm, anyone’s ‘human-activity-cycle of an- oh, forget it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pardon my horde of typoes last chapter, hopefully this time I can actually proofread properly

Lister was sick of the colour grey. It was a rather draining colour, as one would expect, and although originally Lister was neutral on his opinion of the shade, that had drastically changed. See, the interior decor of Red Dwarf was unfortunately very grey.  Grey walls, grey chairs, grey equipment, grey tables, all a sickly military grey. On some days, he could almost _feel_ life being sucked out from him by the blandness of his surroundings.

He missed the blue sky; his memory of the phenomenon was beginning to fade for him now. And while the wonderful view of stars outside the window of his sleeping quarters was a fascinating experience at first, the magic was now lost. It felt desolate, empty. Almost uncomfortable. They never moved, which is what bothered Lister the most. As a child he’d always imagined himself whizzing through the cosmos, the stars flashing by in the windscreen of his vessel, streaking across his vision in the same way streetlights did when travelling along the motorway. But they were painfully still. Red Dwarf may have been travelling at over 200,000 miles per hour, but even that speed couldn’t put a dent in the vast size of just the infinitesimal portion of the universe visible from his small window. Space was just too empty, too bleak.

To add to his grim mood, Lister was spectating the live video transmission of a crew member’s funeral on the vid in his quarters. He couldn’t say he was sad for the loss of the ship’s Flight Coordinator, he only knew him by name, but it prompted an unsettling feel of existential dread in the back of his mind. It used to be scary to think about passing away overseas in the olden days, now you had the possibility of dying half the solar system away. A shiver ran down his spine, he didn’t want to think about that. His job wasn’t to think anyway, it was to push his little blue trolley around until he got to retire to his quarters, only to have to share it with the same man who made his work-life hell.

“We're all gathered here today to pay our last respects to George MacIntyre,” the Captain began speaking through the video. He was a large man, American, dressed in the tan ship’s uniform with the addition of a black tie and armband for the mournful event. “George was an excellent officer and as good of a friend as anyone could ever hope to have. And he'll be missed more deeply and more completely than he could ever know.” He paused, looking around the room briefly at his fellow high ranked officers in the Drive Room. “And now I commend his ashes to the stars he loves so much.” He collected a thermos-sized silver canister from the table in front of him, adorned with the Welsh flag and MacIntyre’s details and cradled it for a second, before giving it a loving pat. “Goodbye, George, we’ll miss you.”

A slot in the table opened and he gently placed the canister inside, before pressing a button, ejecting MacIntyre’s remains into space. A slight whoosh could be heard faintly through the vid.

“This is a piece of music he specially requested. Start the tape please, Holly,” the Captain instructed. The jubilant tune of ‘See You Later, Alligator’ rang through the room as the senior crew members on the vid bowed their heads in respect. Lister couldn’t help but smirk at the unexpected jingle as he looked out the window at the canister passing by and disappearing into the void of space.  

“There goes MacIntyre,” he announced, watching the object quickly get smaller and smaller in his vision until it disappeared completely. “Goodbye, George.” He spun back around in his bed, the top bunk in the small sleeping quarters for two, to observe Rimmer, sat on his own bed, scrawling oodles of notes on his arm with a black marker. “That was George!”

“Really? I thought it was Mary Queen of Scots,” Rimmer snapped back. By now the music had ceased and the Captain was beginning to speak again, but the vid was interrupted by Rimmer’s command of “Off!” which shut it down.

“Hey! I was watching that!” Lister objected.

“Well, tough!” He screwed up his face. It wasn’t his fault him and Rimmer couldn’t get on, from the moment he came on board he tried to just peacefully coexist with the older man. Unfortunately, Rimmer had decided from day 1 that he was simply incompatible with Lister, a prejudice that had fermented into a constant chain of petty arguments.

Lister reached down from his bed towards his guitar, a silver authentic Les Paul copy he’d had since he was 16. Sure, he couldn’t _really_ play it properly, but that wasn’t the point. It was therapy, something he had that kept him connected to something larger, something familiar, something that made him feel less alone.

“You touch that guitar, Lister, I'll remove the E string and garrotte you with it.” Lister paused mid-grab and cradled his face in annoyance.

“Can I do anything?! Is it okay if I breathe?! Can I breathe?!” he replied, turning to face Rimmer before exhaling noisily in his face. Rimmer stood from his bed to escape the warm waft of Lister’s breath, fanning the air away from his face. Lister smirked; as much as he hated his abrasive relationship with Rimmer, he sure enjoyed annoying him in response to his incessant whining.

“Lister, I have an exam tomorrow, which I intend to pass,” Rimmer justified.

“I know, yeah. By cheating.” He pointed towards the marker in Rimmer’s hand and the chicken scratch handwriting covering every inch of his left forearm.

“This is not cheating! It's merely an aid to memory. Helps me marshal the facts already in my command,” he replied, holding up his arm in protest.

“What does? Copying the entire textbooks onto your body? Why don't you hand your body in and let them mark that?” Lister sighed.

“Lister, do you think it's easy for someone like me to become an officer? Someone who wasn't Academy educated? Someone who didn't have the right nobby background? Someone who didn't have the right parents?”

“You didn't have the right parents? Whose parents did you have?” he asked cheekily. While Rimmer’s military family from Io may not have been kind to his sense of ambition, his three brothers who Lister had heard were high fliers in the Space Corps proved that Rimmer’s parents weren’t to blame, despite his insistence that they were.

“ _My_ parents. The wrong parents.” It was absolutely silly.

“I'm just saying, you know, if you can't pass fair and square, why bother?” What use is passing the smegging exam if you won't be able to do the job you're trying to get promoted into? It was something Rimmer just didn’t seem to grasp onto, he was too focused on the end goal, power, success, spending seven weeks drawing up a study timetable. It was entertaining to observe sometimes, like watching a fly spin around on its back after tearing off one of its wings and two legs.

“Well, you would, Lister, because you've got no ambition, no drive. You're perfectly content to be the lowest rank on the ship.”

“I'm not the lowest rank on this ship,” he objected. “What about the laboratory mice? I tell those mice to do something, they've got to jump to it. ‘Yes, sir, Mr Lister, sir!  Eee, eee, eee, eee…’” he said with a high pitched voice and a miniature salute. The truth was, he was the lowest rank on board ship, he was perfectly aware, but unlike Rimmer he wasn’t here to work his way up the ranks of the Space Corps, he was just here to get some money and get back to Earth; his position was one of the very few that accepted someone who’s only qualification was a failed GCSE in technical drawing.

“Lister, you are a nothing,” Rimmer sighed pitifully.

“I'm not a nothing! I've got me plan.”

“What's that, the plan to be the slobbiest entity in the entire universe?”

“No,” Lister retaliated, screwing up his face slightly. “Me five-year plan. You see, I'm going to do two more trips. And I've been saving up all me pay-”

“Since when?” Rimmer interrupted.

“Since always. That's why I never buy any soap or deodorant or socks or anything like that, you know,” he explained, inspecting his hands, taking note of how since he’d begun working on board ship his palms and fingers had begun to callous over in places, his fingertips now rough and scratchy from fiddly manual work, no longer soft and smooth as they used to be. If he wasn’t so frugal he’d invest in some moisturiser. “Anyway, I'm going to buy meself a little farm on Fiji.  And I'm going to get a sheep and a cow, and breed horses.”

Rimmer pursed his lips in confusion. “With a sheep and a cow?” he enquired.

“No, with horses and horses,” Lister sighed, shaking his head.

“On Fiji?”

“Yeah! The prices there are unbelievable.”

“Yes, because they had a volcanic eruption and now most of Fiji's three feet below sea level!”

“It's only three feet. They can wade. That's why the animals are gonna hafta be quite tall,” he said, looking upwards in imagination.

“Nice plan, Lister. Excellent plan! Brilliant plan, Lister!” Rimmer teased. “What about the sheep?  What are you going to do, buy them water-wings? Fit them with stilts?  Better still, you could cross-breed them with dolphins and have leaping mutton. Baa, splash, baa, splash,” he bleated, gesturing with his pen.

“You can get a drainage grant these days,” Lister explained patiently, smiling and turning around in his bed to face the roof.

“Why bother, Lister? You could be the first man to produce wet-look knitwear.”

“Look, this is why I never ever said anything to you, 'cause I knew you'd say something like this,” Lister grumbled, wagging his finger at his bunkmate.

“Lister, you've got the brain of a cheese sandwich,” Rimmer replied. “‘Mornin', Farmer Lister!  I'm just poppin' down to the shops in my submarine. Can I buy you anything?’” He jested, putting on a Mummerset accent and miming a swimmer.

His plan was something he’d thought up only after starting work on Red Dwarf; while his aspirations had always been modest, he’d never had a real life’s plan until just 7 months ago. He was loitering in one of the ship’s cinemas out of screening hours, sat horizontally over three chairs, resting his feet on the row in front of him, sneaking a fag and a few cans of beer while the majority of the crew were asleep. The room was dead quiet, the only sounds were the slight low-pitched hum of the ship’s engine 100 floors below and the occasional whir of a scutter on night duties buzzing by. At this early hour, even the ship’s human transport systems were operating infrequently enough to remain quiet to Lister’s ears.

The room was dimly lit, dark enough to be relaxing but light enough that Lister could make out 75% of the words of the magazine he was reading. It was a JMC promotional catalogue, a 70-page journal comprising completely of product advertisements and corporate announcements available by the truckload at every opportunity. It was a way for the company to rake in a few extra quidbucks by advertising to employees, nothing more. The magazine itself was a thoroughly un-entertaining read, but in the absence of any other options and with a few drinks under his belt, Lister found himself that night indulged in this year’s edition.

He’d skimmed through a few pages of advertisements for motor vehicles, taken a few minutes to read about the benefits of the new Garnier anti-ageing cream, flicked past the several pages of sponsoring for the 2180 Summer Olympics and briefly ogled the pretty ladies in the women’s lingerie ads. But what caught his attention the most was the full-size article on page 59, ‘FIJI: YOUR NEW PLACE IN SPACE’ accompanied by a full-colour 3D image of beautiful tropical mountains and long green landscapes. ‘Apply now for a drainage grant and start your new life in the Pacific for the low price of $£25 per sq/m!’ He spent a while observing the detail of the picture on the glossy page, falling deeper and deeper in love with the view every second.

He was woken by a scutter the next morning, unsure of just when he’d fallen asleep. His bones ached from the awkward position and his throat was dry, but his mind still burned with the beautiful image of the volcanoes of Fiji from the journal. Before setting off on the trek through the ship back to his quarters, he tore out the advertisement and folded it up into his pocket. It was a new ray of hope he needed to cling onto, a dream.

The intercom honked and the face of Holly, the ship’s AI computer, appeared on the vid. Holly, or Hologrammatic Online Laser-Linked YiB mainframe, was built into the core of Red Dwarf, and worked as the ship’s primary operating system and the Captain’s personal assistant; with an I.Q. of 6000, he was the JMC's failsafe against human error. His appearance was simple, a head upon a black background, his most eye catching features being his crooked nose and receding hairline. He wasn’t the prettiest face on board ship, but that wasn’t his job. Good looks don’t help you steer a colossal spacecraft through the solar system.

“The ‘Welcome Back George MacIntyre’ reception is about to begin in the refectory. George says he'd like to invite everybody, especially those who weren't able to attend his funeral,” he announced through the vid. Rimmer and Lister stood from their beds to exit the room, Rimmer grabbbed both their jackets and extended Lister’s out to him, before dropping it at the last second. Lister picked it up and runs at Rimmer as he leaves the room, kicking his legs to try and trip him up. It was childish, but that was the least of his concerns right now. He was still thinking about the motionless stars out his window and the rolling hills of Fiji, and frankly, he would do anything to get off this ship as soon as possible.


	3. Chapter 3

Life was strange, Lister thought. Life was strange, in that you could grieve for someone’s death, then discuss the odds in the football with them that afternoon, that as long as you had the right credentials, death was but a speed bump in your career. Life was strange, in that he was sat in the ship’s refectory awaiting the beginning of a party held in the honour of George MacIntyre’s return to existence not twenty minutes after he watched his physical remains disappear into the cosmos.

Of course, MacIntyre’s state was different now, altered. He wasn’t privileged enough to return to a physical form, if that was even possible, Lister wasn’t sure, he rarely kept up with the news. MacIntyre was a hologrammatic simulation, a computer programme designed to mimic what an algorithm decided his most likely course of action would be that manifested as a broadcast of his body out of pure light, the source a hovering octahedral pod at the centre of his ‘body’. This wasn’t without purpose of course, anything that used up 60% of the ship’s power at one time would be silly as an aesthetic accessory. The deceased crew member deemed most vital to the mission was the one chosen to be reinstated as a hologram. MacIntyre, as Flight Coordinator, was pretty high up on the list, Lister could only think of about 4 or 5 people who would take his place as the ship’s hologram in the event of their death, and one of them he was a bit iffy about.

As a blue-collar worker, Lister needn’t waste the brain cells even considering whether or not he’d have the fortune of becoming a hologram in the event of his death, but frankly, it didn't bother him. He imagined it would be something akin to being woken suddenly just as you're about to fall asleep; frustrating, tiring. Although Lister certainly wanted life, he was willing to accept that death should be final, even in his own case. Of course, he signed away his rights to choose whether or not he would be revived in this form when he scrawled his name at the foot of the JMC employment contract he only briefly skimmed over at the Space Corps recruitment office on Mimas, which meant that somewhere on this hunk of a ship in some drawer was a cartridge with the words “LISTER D., THIRD TECHNICIAN, HOLOGRAMIC PROJECTION BOX” emblazoned on the side, containing his entire life’s memories and personality, gathering dust for all eternity.

“Have you seen Rimmer's arm?” A broad, blond, Danish man with a blue cap crookedly upon his head asked, taking a seat at one of the tables in the refectory beside Lister.

“No, I'm waiting for it to come out in paperback!” Another member of the table exclaimed and the group of 4 burst out laughing. These men were the people Lister dared call his friends, 3 lads who worked in catering he’d met upon boarding the vessel who shared his slobby nature and love of taking the piss out of Rimmer. He tapped the arm of the recently seated member of the table to grab his attention.

“Petersen, have you got a coin?” he asked. Petersen dug through the side pocket of his trousers for a while before slapping a coin down onto the table. “I've just been shown this great new intelligence test. What you've gotta do is force the coin onto your forehead. And then the more times you can bang yourself on the head without it falling off, the more intelligent you are,” he explained, demonstrating as he went along. After four strikes on the back of his head, the coin fell from his forehead and clinked on the table. “You gonna go for it?” Petersen took off his hat and slammed it to the table.

“He’s going for it!” The rest of the group shouted. Lister put the coin to Petersen’s head in preparation.

“You ready?” He began pressing it. “Okay. Can you feel it?”

“Yep.” Petersen responded.

“Can you feel it?”

“Yep.” Lister took his hand away from Petersen’s forehead, removing the coin without his knowledge.

“Can you feel it?”

“Yep.”

“Go!” Petersen began to cautiously strike the back of his head as the group cheered on in their own personal, silly fashion.

At the front of the room Todhunter, the Captain, and MacIntyre sat around a table covered with cups with various coloured contents and a large grey cake in the shape of a grave stone. The Captain stood and the room hushed, Lister still laughing under his breath at Petersen.

“Folks, today is a day for both sadness and joy,” the Captain began to announce. “ Sadness, for the passing away of George, and joy, because George is back with us, albeit as a hologram.” MacIntyre looked around the room awkwardly. “Now some of you may not have travelled with a hologram before, so I ask you to treat him as a normal man, because he is in every respect like George. He has George's personality and George's knowledge and experience. Of course, he can't lift anything or touch anything, so I ask you to cooperate with his requests. And please, take every care not to walk through him, not even when you're in a hurry. Thank you.” He returns to his seat and the room erupts into general applause, with the odd shout of ‘Speech!’ from Lister at the back of the room.

Lister had never heard a hologram speak in the flesh before, only on TV occasionally during the absurdly boring hologrammatic rights campaigns and the occasional appearance of one in a show or in an interview on the news. He wondered if it sounded like a normal human or if it was more artificial, less round and natural in the way a regular voice is. Although he certainly couldn’t give two smegs about the topic in general, he was curious nonetheless.

“I want to thank everybody for giving me such a marvellous funeral,” MacIntyre began talking, his voice laced with slight awkwardness inside a Welsh accent. “I've just seen the vid. And I want to thank the Captain for his beautiful eulogy. Beautiful. But I still don't understand why he didn't use the one I wrote.” A few members of the room laughed. “This must seem pretty spooky for everyone, but I don't want you to think of me as someone who's dead, more as someone who's no longer a threat to your marriages. I think Joe knows what I'm talking about!” More laughter. “As you know, Holly's only capable of sustaining one hologram. So, my advice to anyone more vital to the mission than me is: if you die, I'll kill you.” The members of the room began laughing again, then applauded as MacIntyre awkwardly bowed his head to signify the end of his speech.

His voice was certainly very normal, if not perfectly human-like, although Lister could swear he could hear a slight tinny-ness to it, which he reasoned was probably just him trying too hard to find faults in it. Aside from a 1.5-inch capital H dominantly displayed on his forehead, as required by law for every hologram, there was no way to tell from at least Lister’s distance that MacIntyre was a simulation. It was incredible.

“please be upstanding for the cutting of the cake,” Todhunter announced, and the room stood. The Captain pressed the knife through the grey cake as MacIntyre watched on awkwardly, knowing that he was unable to touch anything.. “Flight coordinator George MacIntyre,” Todhunter added, raising his glass to a toast.

“George!” The members of the room repeated, raising their glasses also and taking a drink, before applauding once more.

“Okay, just one thing before the disco,” the Captain began, “Holly tells me that he's sensed a non-human life form aboard.”

“Sir, it's Rimmer!” Lister shouted from the back of the room, raising his hand holding his cigarette, earning a few snickers from his mates.

“We don't know _what_ it is, _Lister_. So just be careful, okay?” the Captain continued.

“I'm turning you in, Rimmer,” Lister teased, quieter this time, looking over at Rimmer at another table and grinning. Rimmer took his report book from his left breast pocket pointedly and began to write in it.

“Ooooh!” Lister and his group of friends mocked. He snickered once more and took a draw from his cigarette, while the whole ‘MacIntyre is back’ experience was certainly a first for him, he didn’t dwell on it. His mind was occupied with the thought of the cat he’d smuggled on board and hidden in the air duct in his quarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time, but I'm just trying to divide it up into chunks by gaps in time between chapters


	4. Chapter 4

The air of the sleeping quarters was thick with anxiety that evening. Rimmer, with his pre-exam jitters, had sparked the tenseness upon the pair’s return from the refectory, and Lister’s paranoia thrived in the atmosphere as his secret fermented within him. That was, until he’d fallen asleep on his side in his top bunk, his thumb still in his mouth from his nervous nail biting he had the awful habit of. Now Lister was enjoying a surreal dream of moving polaroid pictures in a teenage photo album he’d never seen found in a chest with a magic telescope through which he could see three and a half new colours projected onto the Saturn-rise. It was just your regular old dream, utterly nonsensical.

Rimmer, on the other hand, was unfortunately wide awake. He sat on his bed in his undergarments, every visible inch of his skin covered in black ink, detailing the formulae and knowledge needed to pass his looming exam. He felt quite pleased with himself, a feeling of certainty had settled down over him, blanketing his anxiety, but not entirely. He knew for certain that he did not mentally retain any of the knowledge on his skin, but he was sure that this was finally his key to success. He looked over his notes once more while Lister snored softly above him.

“Right. They're bound to ask the right thigh, which is 10 per cent,” he began muttering to himself. “They must ask the left thigh, which is 20 per cent. They've  _ got _ to ask one of the forearms. Which means I've passed already! Anything on the left shin's a bonus!” He stood from his bed and began pacing around the room. He had it down, he had it sorted. It was a flawless plan. “Right,” he began, looking at one arm. “Current under tension is... what's this?” He paused and squinted, trying to make out his own minuscule chicken scratch handwriting. “Current under tension is equal? Current under tension is expandable? Current under tension is expensive? What does this mean?” He began to panic. “What does any of it mean? I've covered my body in complete and utter and total absolute nonsense gibberish! Aaaargh! Just relax, relax, relax, relax-” he groaned, burying his face in his hands.

Lister coughed awake and looked around startled.

“Er, plus 20 per cent of the ship's course minus the Pythagoras theorem multiplied by two over the X axis minus one equals the total velocity of Red Dwarf, which means I know everything about astro-engineering. Good morning, Lister, for probably the last time,” Rimmer gabbled to feign confidence. Lister lit a cigarette and took a draw, sighing as he exhaled.

“You've got it all down, have you, Rimmer?”

“Couple of blanks, but I think we're there,” he replied in the same tone of false confidence, slapping his buttocks. 

“So you can't remember anything?” Lister asked lethargically and sarcastically.

“Think what you will, Lister.” He began to put on his grey overalls. It was true, in a sense, he couldn’t remember anything, but the thought of Lister’s snarkiness being correct was enough to make Rimmer lie to himself. 

“Rimmer, F-I-S-H, that's how you spell ‘fish’. Then you just keel over, I'm sure it'll all come flooding back to you,” he teased tiredly, laying back down in his bed. He was rather annoyed he’d been awoken, his dream was just getting interesting, it was up to the part where the cute blonde chick was buying him a girly drink at some bar in a meadow. Lister’s dreams were often eccentric and fast changing, a strong contrast to the life he was living on board ship, too routine-y, too grey and drab. A headache pinched his left brow and he winced. For once he just wanted to be left alone to get some well-deserved peace and quiet, even if it meant taking another holiday 6 decks down in a janitor’s closet.

“Dry up, Lister.” The intercom honked.

“Will entrants for the engineer's examination now make their way to the teaching room,” Holly’s voice rang through the halls once more, the echo in the halls slightly audible inside the sleeping quarters.

“Well, Rimmer, honestly, good luck,” Lister said sincerely, letting his arm fall and hand and giving the thumbs up.

“It's all right, Lister.  I'm in  _ complete _ and total control.” Rimmer straightened his collar and fixed his cuffs, then collected his briefcase from the chair beside Lister’s guitar and marched out of the room. Lister watched as he exited and observed the few second interval between Rimmer’s disappearance from his view around the right-hand corner and his brisk walking back as he realised he took the wrong turn. He took another draw from his cigarette and shook his head slightly.

“Lock,” he commanded the door. “Lock!” The door slid shut and clunked. He threw back his covers and sat up slowly in his bed, before jumping down to the floor and slobbishly thudding towards his locker as a meowing sound from the air vent became more urgent. He took a quick puff from his cigarette and placed it in his ear, fiddling with the key in the lock on the metal door. From the locker, he pulled out a small red plate he’d nicked from Rimmer at some point and a small bottle of milk with a silver lid.

“Frankenstein!” he called out, clicking his tongue and walking around the table in the centre of the room towards the grating of the air conditioner. The meowing continued in response. “Oh, come on, Frankenstein!” He set the platter down on the floor and poured some milk into it, sloshing partially onto the floor in the process. He carefully opened the grate and his face softened.

“Oh, you're getting really big now, you know?” he cooed, picking up and coddling the sleek black cat from inside the vent. “I hope it's not twins. You've already got all me milk ration.” He smiled. “Never mind, when the baby cat comes, maybe we can give him water and pretend it's milk. It's only a baby cat, it won't know, eh? Eh?” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the slightly tattered 3D picture he’d torn from the JMC promotional catalogue all those months ago. “Do you want to see my picture of Fiji again, Frankie? You're going to love it there. Look.” He held it up to show her, but she looked the other way. Nevertheless, Lister had fallen in love with the Titanian feline, despite the dubious legality of her presence on the ship. 

He’d smuggled her on board during a particularly nasty bout of loneliness he’d felt while on shore leave on Titan, she’d become the last type of family Lister could cling onto. She was part of his dream now, his dream of the rolling green hills of Fiji he longed for, but now, his feelings of love were beginning to be shadowed by his anxiety of her being found, he didn’t care whether or not he was reprimanded, but he knew that if her hiding place was uncovered, she’d not live to see the next morning, and that was something Lister couldn’t bear to think of.


	5. Chapter 5

Rimmer stretched his arms as he sat in his chair at a desk at the back of the examining room.  He liked to think that what he was feeling was confidence, certainty that he’d pass the exam in a breeze, but that was just wishful thinking. The pounding in his chest wasn’t excitement for promotion but nervousness, ticking through his body like a metronome gone mad. Nevertheless, he liked to think that he knew what he was doing, confidence is key! That’s what they all say of course, but Rimmer was certain that it was all total smeg, how does confidence tell you the answers to the smegging questions? In any case, it was his best shot. He was fine, everything was fine. Things. Were. Fine.

Todhunter paced down the aisle between desks, taking an authoritative look at each entrant.

“Okay, everybody. You've got three hours. No modems, no speaking slide rules,” he announced. Rimmer quickly laid out his utensils and popped a mint into his mouth. “Turn over and start. Good luck.”

Rimmer turned over his paper. At the top of the page was a title, _Astronavigation Examination_. Below that, it was anyone’s game. As he skimmed through the paper he could recognise words here and there, but the general majority blurred together, technical terms he was entirely unfamiliar with stared him menacingly in the face. His pen followed his eyes as he looked over the paper, his face scrunching up. He turned the paper over, to check that side again, but it was blank. The room was quiet aside from the usual rumble of the ship’s engine and the sound of pens across paper from the other entrants. He looks around at them to make sure he wasn’t the only one who had no idea where to start, but alas, he was alone.

He takes another look at the first side of the paper and frowns, that can't be it. That can’t possibly be it. Hands shaking, he checks to see if his pages are stuck together, first trying to push them apart, then blowing between them, but no luck. That _was_ it. He looked over towards Todhunter nonchalantly, he still had his plan after all. He slowly pushed up his right-hand sleeve, surely something he’d copied down would prove useful. He glanced over at his arm to find no words, no numbers, only a series of long black smears rendering anything he’d previously written unintelligible. He winced. Oh god. Ohhh god. He took a few seconds to try and ward off the panic that had thudded into him like someone had just smacked him in the chest with a metal softball bat with the force of a thousand men.

He turned his hand over and observed it. Covered in black. He screwed his face up again, his heartbeat thudding through his ears. In that moment he felt the disappointment of everyone he was trying to impress, everyone he looked up to, and the voices of everyone who knew he’d fail once more. In a hopeless effort, he slapped his hand down onto the exam paper, creating a large black handprint, and with a shaky hand, he signed his name, dotting the ‘i’ in ‘Rimmer’ twice.

He stood from his chair slowly, his legs like jelly and his mind in a daze. Facing Todhunter he brought his arm upwards, twisted his wrist thrice and saluted stiffly. Todhunter’s confused look was the last thing he remembered before he passed out, falling forwards and collapsing onto the floor. And just like that it was over. Todhunter sighed and called for a medical team, by then he’d gotten used to Rimmer’s variety of freakouts, it certainly wasn’t new. He’d be fine when he woke up for certain, but that’s something he didn’t have to worry about. He made a mental note to make sure that the next time Rimmer inevitably returned to the examination room with no clue how to even spell ‘astronavigation’, he kept a closer eye on him. But for now, he had work to do, he just didn't have the time to spend on a single hopeless case.

 

* * *

  

Lister was splayed on his front in his bunk in the regular fashion, his mind wandering once more, as it does best. That night, his focus was on Earth once more, the past, the life he’d left behind. He had a nice set up going back then, back when he still lived in an old house in Liverpool. He wondered how his old friends were doing, if they’d forgotten him yet, if there was anyone there who missed his presence. See, while he always thought he was lonelier on the Dwarf than he was on Earth, that was far from the truth.

He always craved adventure, experience, a story to tell. Unfortunately, it meant he was often quite distant, no more so than on this ship, in this current job, but when people cared for you, when you had a proper set of mates, or even a bird, being distant meant a whole lot more than just wishing for something better.

He attempted to blow a bubble in the gum he was chewing, grumbling when it failed to inflate beyond an inch in diameter. An episode of Mugs Murphy, an animated children’s cartoon Lister had discovered was in Holly’s databanks only a few weeks prior, much to his surprise. He was, of course, eagerly awaiting Rimmer’s return, ready to wind him up like he so loved doing. If anything it was only fair, if Rimmer could poke fun at Lister’s ambitions and dreams then he had every right to return the favour.

The door to the quarters slid open and Rimmer shuffled in, holding an icepack to his head, looking entirely sorry for himself. His hair was messier than usual and damp with what Lister assumed was sweat, his eyes empty and glued to the ground.

“Off!” Rimmer commanded the vid and the jaunty cartoon shut off. There was silence in the room as Lister watched him thud over to his bed and sit down in it, leaning on the wall of his bunk for support. Rimmer sighed as Lister looked down over the side from his bunk, his six long dreads from the crown of his head of his head swinging down into Rimmer’s vision.

“You smegged it up again, didn’t you?” Lister asked.

“Shut up, Lister!” Rimmer snapped in reply. He didn’t want to have to deal with this, not now, not again.

“Did you remember my spelling lesson, Rimmer, or were you some other animal today?” he snickered.

“I said shut up, Lister!”

“Wait, wait, lemme guess. A pig. Even better, a chicken. No wait! An ass. I _dearly_ hope you wrote that, Rimmer-” he continued teasing.

“Shut the smeg up!!” Silence rang through the room once more and Lister lay back in his bed.

“Why do you keep trying, Rimmer?” he asked sincerely. “Surely after failing the same exam nine times you’d at least lower your expectations for yourself.”

“I only failed that exam eight times, Lister. Not nine!” Rimmer objected matter-of-factly. “Just eight.”

“Just eight? Rimmer you don’t get to use the word ‘just’ in that sentence, ‘just eight’ is still a smegging lot,” he said, attempting to blow another bubble.

“What do you want from me, Lister?” Rimmer asked. Lister didn’t really want anything, in fact, he wasn't even trying to annoy him anymore. He just couldn’t understand what fuelled Rimmer’s relentless efforts.

“I just don’t get it. Your pointless determination.”

“Well, I’ve tried explaining that to you before, Lister, but you’re too thick to understand.”

“Whatever, Rimmer. Off!” Lister commanded the lights. They faded down to darkness with the exception of a singular light above Rimmer in his bunk. The day was long, the night was looming, but that didn’t really mean much when the sky outside was always black. Black and grim as always, and for once, Rimmer began to understand the hopelessness that his bunkmate saw in the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally a divergence! From here on out its all new, although I have tried to stick closely to the general plot as it follows


	6. Chapter 6

Lister was completely and totally bored. His ears once more echoed with the sound of his and Rimmer’s footsteps, the hum of the ship’s engine, and, most annoyingly, the squeaky wheel of the trolley. If someone gave him the choice between doing this job and watching paint dry, he would have told them to smeg off, and that he doesn't give a single smeg about any smegging job or any smegging paint. Lister was royally smegged off. 

A headache ground into his temples and his stomach churned from a breakfast not gone down well, his neck ached from an awkward sleeping position and his knee has decided to act up for no good reason. Rimmer was still upset from his exam, even though a week had passed by since his spasm, neither of them had even tried to share a friendly word the whole day so far. In fact, even their bickering was down fivefold in preference of stone cold silence. 

Lister’s knee flared up and he tripped slightly, quietly exclaiming in pain as the pair made their way to the next job. It was  _ really _ beginning to get on his nerves.

“Lister! Quit dilly-dallying around!” Rimmer snapped. 

“If you say please,” he spat. The thing he needed the least right now was more pedantic monitoring from the man he couldn’t escape.

“Lister!”

“That doesn’t sound like ‘please’!” He was having none of it. He just needed a day to himself, even if it still meant working, just a day away from the absolute joy-leech he had the fortune of being in close quarters with for what seemed like constantly. He just needed a day to take a breather, to relax. In fact, screw that, Lister just wanted to go home. Right then. Definitively. There was no more mental bargaining with time and money to keep his mood up while on board, the was no reason in his mind why he should spend any more time on this ship other than to get paid $£5/hr minimum wage and to hitch a ride back to Earth and of course the fact that you couldn’t really walk away from your contract at this stage, not when your contract provides you with oxygen. Lister wasn’t an angry man, but he had his limits.

“Lister I am not saying ‘please’!” Rimmer shouted. “I shouldn’t have to deal with this! I shouldn’t have to deal with  _ you _ , I shouldn’t have to service chicken soup machines all day, I should be an officer by now! I  _ deserve _ to be an officer by now!”

“Rimmer, you’re not going to become a smegging officer until you pass your smegging exams! The only thing you can pass is out, admit it!” Lister yelled back, for once matching the calibre and malice of Rimmer’s statement. A silent stand off took place as the two men glared at each other angrily, they were both at the end of their tether, both entirely smegged off. The intercom honked.

“Will Arnold Rimmer please make his way to the Captain’s office,” Holly’s voice reverberated through the halls. Rimmer grinned.

“Ah, there’s my promotion now,” he gloated. “Goodbye, Lister, you awful goit and hello officer-dom!” He turned and walked past Lister proudly, colliding with his shoulder in the process. Lister watched as he made his way down the hallway until he rounded a corner, disappearing from view, but the tenseness the pair felt between them that day hung over him still, despite his absence, like thick smog. He shook his head and continued pushing the trolley. What a smeghead.

 

* * *

 

The ship’s drive room was busy, officers and senior technicians brushed past each other briskly always busy, always with some important job waiting. Chatter filled the room like a drone, in partnership with the hum of the ship’s engine, louder here than in most places of the ship, and the sound of bleeps and mechanical noises from all directions. It was the real heart of the ship, the primary workstation of everyone Rimmer wished he was. He’d had the fortune, a few days prior, of performing a maintenance job in the drive room, in the heart of one of the main consoles, he felt important, alive. The feeling of superiority had hooked him even stronger into his desire for promotion, for rank and power. And  _ finally _ , he was getting what he deserved.

He walked into the room smugly, taking a condescending look at the officers going about their duties.

“Hello, chaps, pleased to see you all this morning!” he announced with a sense of importance. Nobody acknowledged him. Nobody even spared him a glance. They were all total gits. 

“Hello, darling, would you mind informing me of the whereabouts of our good Captain Hollister’s office?” he asked a female officer at a panel near the door. She turned in her chair and gave Rimmer an annoyed look; unfortunately, she’d already had the pleasure of meeting him on several occasions, none of them in particularly friendly circumstances. A name flew to Rimmer’s mind when he saw the dark shade of lipstick she always wore. Kochanski. He returned her hostile glance with a smug grin, she wouldn’t be so snobby once he got his promotion.

“Over there, Where it says ‘Captain's Office’. Where it's always said ‘Captain's Office’,” she dismissed him. 

“Thanks muchly,” he replied, accentuating his fake smile, then letting his face drop as soon as she turned back to her work. 

“Rimmer!” the Captain called from the doorway of his office, motioning for him to enter. His face was grumpier than Rimmer expected, but nevertheless, smiled and marched towards him. His time had come. 

“You asked to see me, Captain?” he asked, standing in the doorway of the office while Hollister sat back down at his seat.

“Yes, I did-”

“Before you continue,” Rimmer interrupted, “may I just say how stunning your office is, yes, the office of a real man, a true Captain, this is. When I become a Captain this is the sort of office I’d want, a real noble office-” his attempts at flattery were interrupted.

“Rimmer.”

“Yes, sir?” 

“We need to have a talk about work ethic,” the Captain said flatly.

“Work ethic, sir?” Rimmer was confused. Really confused. 

“Rimmer, I’m talking about the work you did on the drive plate. It was terrible.” Rimmer’s smile dropped. “That’s not just something you can do a bad job on. Don’t you know what will happen if that thing is ineffectively repaired in an emergency? It could put parts of the ship out of action for weeks, or even months, and that’s not something that we can afford right now.” Hollister scolded. Ah. The drive plate. The mend job he’d been assigned in the drive room.

“Sir, that was Lister’s fault, he’s the one who fixed the drive plate, not me!” Rimmer justified, his nerves beginning to flare up again as they always did.

“Now, Rimmer, I know that’s not true, because not only did I personally see you mend that drive plate, not only that, I have Lister’s records here which say that he was in the medical lab during the job requesting sick leave on account of diarrhoea for the third time this week,” he said, pushing a few leafs of paper across his desk towards Rimmer standing in front of him. “Now the scutters are going to have to mend your work taking away their valuable time, which all costs money. Money we don’t  _ have _ .” Rimmer resisted screwing up his face.

“Ah, fantastic, well, nice to get constructive criticism from you sir, but I really must be off-” he began to say hurriedly, turning to exit the room.

“Not so fast, Rimmer.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Negligence is an offence worthy of demotion, I hope you’re aware.” The blood ran from Rimmer’s face and he turned pale. Demotion? He couldn’t be demoted! That was the opposite of what he was trying to achieve, what he’d spent so long trying to catch. Even worse, it’d put him at the same rank as Lister. The thought was disgusting.

“No, sir, please, you can’t demote me! I’ve been with the company for 13 years, please sir, with all respects, you can’t do this!” he pleaded, panic rising through his veins once more and making his head spin.

“Rimmer, you have the choice of demotion, or being put into stasis for the rest of the trip and forfeiting 18 months wages.”

“But, sir, I know that you’re a good captain, a kind-hearted captain, please don’t do this to me, this is my career, I can’t have a tarnished record!” He sank to his knees and leaned on Hollister’s desk, only to be met with the same disappointed eyes with no hint of remorse.

“Do you want to get demoted?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you want to go into stasis?”

“No, sir!”

“Choose.”

 

* * *

 

Todhunter escorted a reluctant Rimmer down a long hallway towards the stasis booths. The coffin-sized triangular pods lined the wall gloriously, a technological milestone for interstellar travel used only as a punishment on Red Dwarf. The booth froze its contents in time for the necessary duration, originally intended to aid with long haul flights, but now used for a myriad of other reasons.

“Look, Rimmer, no one wants to go through with this.”

“It's fine, I don’t need your consolation. I’ve got everything under control,” Rimmer snapped, pushing off Todhunter’s hand on his shoulder. He didn’t need consolation, that much was true, especially from a git like Todhunter. As for having everything under control? That was never true, even less so now, but it was a comforting delusion he liked to keep his head under. THen he heard a familiar squeaky noise approaching from down the left corridor, a familiar set of footsteps dragging sloppily along the ground, a familiar whistle that rang in his ears and ground on his nerves. Lister stumbled round the corner, cigarette in-ear, leaning on his small blue trolley.

“How’s that promotion going, Rimmer?” he asked, the corner of his mouth bent upwards in a slight smirk as if he was suppressing a laugh already.

“Oh, smeg off already,” Rimmer replied, Lister only snickered.

“Bye bye, Rimmer,” he began. “Sorry, I mean bye bye  _ Admiral  _ Rimmer,” he teased, continuing to snicker as he went on his way with the trolley. Rimmer frowned, infuriated, but dismissed it as Todhunter guided him closer to the stasis booth.

“Is this going to hurt?” he asked quietly, making sure Lister at the end of the hallway had no chance of hearing him.

“Haven't you ever travelled interstellar?” Todhunter enquired.

“O-Of course I have, it's all coming back to me now,” he lied, laughing unsurely. He was nervous, for sure. as much as he liked to think he was completely relaxed, the total opposite was true. He took a deep breath as Todhunter opened the stasis booth door, then stepped inside, turning around to face outwards and down the corridor. He paused for a second. “Is it too late to apply for a court hearing?”

“See you in eighteen months, Rimmer.” He closed the door and it hisses slightly as the booth was sealed. Rimmer’s heart began to thud in his chest. “Holly, activate the stasis field.”

“OK, Frank.” Lister, at the end of the corridor, paused and watched as Rimmer looked around confusedly for a second, then froze. He shook his head and laughed once more, collecting the cigarette from his ear and taking a long draw. He had a good year and a half ahead of him. Good, peace and quiet. He resumed pushing the trolley, finally rounding a corner away from the best news he’d seen all week. Things were finally going up for Third Technician Dave Lister, and for the first time in a while now, he finally felt satisfied.


	7. Chapter 7

For Rimmer, the time passed in an instant. One moment he saw Lister and Todhunter in the corridor, Lister watching him from afar and Todhunter walking away, and the next they were gone. There was no other sensation, no pain, no jerk, not even a flash. The door hissed as it opened, a small plume of dust sweeping across the floor as a slap of musky air hit Rimmer in the face.

“Good morning, Arnold. It is now safe for you to emerge from stasis,” Holly’s voice announced.

“Oh, already?” He was still in a state of disbelief after worrying himself about the experience. In fact, he felt a bit silly now.

“Please proceed to the drive room for debriefing.” He began to walk down the corridor, the clack of his shoes on the floor reverberating much more than they usually did. In fact, upon further inspection, aside from the ship’s engine, his footsteps were the only sound he could hear. No distant chatter, no intercom, no rumble of elevators and human transport. It was strange. Very strange. And it made Rimmer feel very uncomfortable. 

Upon passing the refectory he paused. Usually, the room was bustling with activity, even on quiet days, several groups of people were usually gathered. But, much to his surprise, the room was completely empty.

“Uh, Holly. Where is everybody?” He asked, observing the curious small piles of white powder spread around the room.

“They're dead, Arnold.” 

“Who is?” Rimmer asked, he had to have misheard, he wasn’t listening properly, it was almost as if Holly had just told him the entire crew were dead. It was a laughable thought.

“Everybody, Arnold.” He hadn’t misheard.

“Everybody’s dead?” 

“Yes, Arnold.” He continued walking through the refectory, cutting through to take a corridor straight to the drive room. Everybody? That’s impossible. Surely. But the longer he thought about it, the more it made sense, the quietness, the lack of escort upon his release. He paused.

“So I’m senior officer then?” 

“Yes, Arnold,” Holly replied in his usual deadpan voice.

“Yes!!”

“Not like it really means much anymore, does it?”

“Who cares Holly,  _ I’m _ senior officer!  _ Me _ !  _ Arnold Rimmer _ !” he celebrated, smugly making his way through the corridor and into the drive room.

“Should’ve never let him out in the first place.”

The drive room was littered with more of the curious piles of powder, on consoles, chairs, the floor, neat piles resembling baking soda scattered about randomly.

“What happened to everyone anyway?” Rimmer finally asked, observing the mess around him.

“That drive plate you ineffectively repaired, it blew, and the entire crew was subjected to a lethal dose of cadmium 2 before I could seal the area.” He stopped in his tracks, his face dropping.

“I-I thought the scutters were supposed to fix that.”

“Those buggers? I thought you would’ve realised they’re useless by now, you've only been with the company 14 years.” 

“Shut up, Holly, that’s not important,” he snapped. “And why’s it so dirty around here? I would’ve thought those mechanical teapots were at least capable of dusting.” He dipped his finger in a pile of the substance on one of the consoles and inspected it. Very curious indeed. “What is this stuff, Holly?”

“That is Catering Officer Olaf Petersen.” He quickly wiped his hand on his tie in disgust.

“Ugh, I can’t believe I just stuck my finger in the remains of that mouldy Danish pastry! What about these other piles of dust? Are they other crew members too? Who’s that?” he asked, pointing at a random pile on the floor beside the table.

“That's Captain Hollister.”

“Ah, so that’s Todhunter then,” he said, pointing to the neighbouring pile.

“No, that's Third Technician Lister.”

“Lister? What was Lister doing in the Drive Room?”

“He was explaining to the Captain why he thought the scutters hadn't sealed the drive plate properly.” He looked around for a second in disbelief, the situation was all too surreal, this had to be a dream, this was beyond any reasonable measure of sense.

“Hang on,” he paused, wagging his finger and smirking suspiciously. “How long was I in stasis for, Holly?”

“Well, I couldn't release you until the radiation reached a safe background level-”

“Just answer the question, you git.”

“Three million years.”

“Three million years?!” He paused. “I guess that means they’ve stopped making Spiderman reboots.” The number was too large to sink in, too difficult to comprehend. For a few moments, he had no words. “So I’m the last person in the universe then?”

“Yes, Arnold.” He was unsure how to react, unsure what this meant. It was something you never expect to hear, never get the opportunity to plan for, let alone have the ability to comprehend upon first hearing. Of course, Rimmer was twisted, introverted and self-centered, his mind had no choice but to default to yet another delusion of success he could hide under.

“This is fantastic!” he celebrated smugly. “I’m the epitome of the human race, Holly, a sole astro navigating his way through the cosmos with a valiant dream of home. And everybody said I’d amount to nothing, well look at me now! No more blocked chicken soup nozzles, no more failure. And no more of that vile gimboid, Lister,” he snarled.

“Well, not exactly,” Holly added.

“I beg your pardon?”

A familiar figure entered the room silently, his black boots making no sound and he plodded in. His uniform hung off him crudely in the usual manner, his hands stuffed in his pockets beneath the grey moleskin jacket that covered his stumpy frame. His usually rich skin seemed paler, greyer, but the most shocking change Rimmer noticed about Dave Lister was the sharp silver H brandished on his forehead, edges crisply lined with black. 

“Hello, smeghead. Long time no see, eh?” 

“Lister! You're a hologram?!” Rimmer exclaimed in shock.

“Yeah, watch this,” Lister hissed, waving his arm through the console beside him with a slight whoosh. It was then that Rimmer saw the malice in his usually soft and kind brown eyes. Lister was angry, not in the usual smegged off way he was when Rimmer insulted him or particularly ground on his nerves, but in a deep, fundamental way Rimmer could feel radiating from him.

“This is absolutely terrible, Holly, why’d you have to bring Lister back? Of all people, you chose the human equivalent of an earthworm,” Rimmer whined and Lister frowned.

“Hey, you can’t talk, you're not the one who’s dead, murderer,” he spat, passing Rimmer and taking a seat at one of the chairs, resting his leg on the console beside him and sinking down, resting his head on his hand. 

“What did I do?!” 

“What did you do? You're the one who didn’t mend the drive plates properly!” he growled. 

“That’s not my fault! If you hadn't shirked off work, Lister, and gone to the medibay, I would have had some help when I was mending the drive plate, and you wouldn't be dead,” Rimmer protested.

“Even if I had gone to that job, Rimmer, you wouldn’t have let me do anything! Not even remove one eeny, teeny, weeny, little rivet! Don’t blame me for killing everybody!” Lister yelled back. He wasn’t exactly pleased with his new living arrangements, to say the least if you could even call it that anymore. In fact, as Rimmer suspected, Lister was smegged off at his very core.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rimmer dismissed, avoiding the argument with the bundle of rage beside him staring off into space. “What’s it like?” 

“What, death? Rather like listening to you talking if I’m being honest.” Admittedly, Lister couldn’t remember his final moments in intricate detail, only flashes here and there; random images, sounds, thoughts. He remembered being blown to the floor and a pain in his nose and throat, he remembered screaming and alarms as his body prickled all over. He remembered Kristine Kochanski’s eyes making contact with his own, right before he lost his vision. From then on, life and death blurred together, sensations attacked him from every direction and mixed together to create a nonsensical blanket of numbness wrapped tightly around him. Everything was nothing. At some point, the sounds stopped. The burning pricks that had licked through his body like flames through a forest ceased. It was like sleep, really. A dreamless sleep with no beginning or end or sense of passage. In fact, the only reason Lister knew it happened was when he was booted up. But he wasn’t him. He wasn’t the Lister who’d died only five feet from where he sat now. He was but a simulation, so could he really say he knew what it was like after death? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t have to be sure, all he knew was that the culprit for the complete mayhem that took place in the space of less than a minute was standing, alive, in the room with him.

“Not death you small minded clothes-peg, being a hologram,” Rimmer snapped, walking over and swiping his arm through Lister’s head inquisitively.

“Hey, smeg off!” he hissed. “It’s alright, I guess. I  _ feel _ the same, I’m just... dead. It's not fair. There's loads of things I've never done. Like ... I've never had a prawn vindaloo. And I've never read…” he paused and thought for a second. “...A book. And I wanted to have a family. And I wanted to have loads of practice in the things that you've got to do to get a family.” He sighed and leaned back onto the console, his heart pushing rushes of sadness through him with each virtual beat. Lister was already an emotional man, but the feelings of confusion, anger, and grief he felt itched in his eyes, threatening to spill out in a torrent of tears which he focussed on suppressing with all his will.

“Oh, spare me the eulogy,” Rimmer whined.

“I wanted a life, I wanted to  _ live, _ not to be stuck in space with you for eternity.”

“Do you think  _ I _ particularly want to spend the rest of my life on this rocket powered tin can any more than you do?” 

“Okay, neither of us want to be here, but come on, Rimmer, look on the bright side,” Lister sighed.

“The bright side?  _ What _ bright side?”

“You're  _ alive _ , that’s better than what I’ve got.”

“Alive, to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Look, Rimmer, I'm not really here! I'm not really  _ me,  _ okay?! Don't you see? I'm a computer simulation, algorithm, whatsit of me,” his voice cracked. “And I didn’t even get that smegging stupid pamphlet either if we’re  _ really _ tallying my disadvantages here.” A single tear rolled down his cheek from his right eye, glinting in the light. He quickly wiped it away and hid his face, poorly hiding his emotional state. In this moment, he couldn’t bear it if Rimmer decided to poke fun at his emotions, he expected it almost, but he knew he just couldn’t take it, couldn’t hit back with a witty retort.

“I guess you're right. But I still run things, you hear? As long as I’m Second Technician and you’re just, what is it again?”

“Captain” he replied sarcastically.

“ _ Third _ Technician, you'll keep pushing the trolley and I’ll do everything else,” Rimmer ordered.

“Rimmer, I can’t touch the stupid smegging trolley, I can’t touch anything!” Lister hissed, standing from his chair and slowly approaching him, finger pointed in a hostile manner. “If you need any work done you're gonna have to do it yourself, I don’t have to listen to a word you say.”

“That’s it. You’re on report, squire.”

“On report to who?!” he yelled angrily.

“To me! The senior officer, and acting captain of this ship!” Rimmer spelt out. 

“Ohhh!” Lister grumbled. “Rimmer, look, I know it's wrong of me to speak ill of ‘his holiness’ and all that, but you're still a smeghead,” he spat.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, you're still a smeghead” he growled, exiting the room grumpily.

“Lister, do you have any conception of the penalty for describing the acting senior officer as a smeghead?” Rimmer called out behind him, but it was no use, he wasn’t going to pay attention, he was already halfway down the corridor. There was really no need for Lister to act so uncharacteristically cross, sure he was dead and it was Rimmer’s fault, but the least he could do was appreciate the situation of the  _ living  _ crew member. It was awfully frustrating, Rimmer thought, walking back across the room. As he rested his hand on the table, the ground beneath his foot slipped slightly, he took a moment to stabilise and assess the situation. His boot was covered in white powder,  _ Lister’s _ white powder. He backed up and tried to shake it off, but it was no use, he’d have to polish his shoes again later that night. Even after his death, it was somehow possible for Lister to inconvenience him in as many ways as possible, it wasn’t fair. He would reign him in one way or another, he had to, or else it was a mighty long lifetime ahead of him to share with the ship’s new hologram.


End file.
